But there was one there who smiled
almost fearfully, as if doubting his privilege of
mirth in that gay, strange company. He smiled,
not as one of them, but in silent awe, and did not
dare to laugh aloud. He hoped that they would
not notice him and tell him to go home. He had
dreamed of some day seeing such wondrous boys as these,
and here they were before him, all about him, in their
natty khaki, self-possessed, unabashed, merry, free.
Was not that enough for Peter Piper of Piper’s
Crossroads?
Yes, that was enough, more than he
had ever expected. It was like the scene he had
“pretended” out in the little barn when
he had presented himself with the fancied signalling
badge.
Stealthily his hand moved to his ticking
shirt and removed the campaign button. For there
before him was a boy with a real, a real, signalling
badge. His eyes were riveted upon that badge;
he could not take them from it. Suppose someone
should ask him about the button; why he was wearing
it now that Harding and Coolidge were in office?
He would blush, he could not tell them.
He hoped that they would not notice
him for he knew he could not talk to them, that his
voice would shake and that he would go to pieces.
Now that he saw them, joyous, uproarious, bantering,
wearing badges on their sleeves, he realized that
what he had done was nothing at all. He
heard Scoutmaster Ned humorously belittling the exploits
of his own heroes. No, Peter Piper would not
step rashly into that bantering throng with that one
exploit of his own.
So he stood in the bay window, half
concealed by the old-fashioned melodeon, and watched
them. Just gazed at them....
And when they all crowded out he lingered
behind and whispered to the music-master of the milk
cans, “Don’t tell them, Ham; please don’t
tell them anything about me.”
And so the party made their way along
the dark road and Peter followed and heard the flattering
comments and fraternal plans involving the little
hero from Bridgeboro. Evidently they were going
to keep Scout Harris with them and have him patented,
from what Peter overheard.
When they came to Peter’s little
home, Scoutmaster Ned discovered and spoke to him
while Pee-wee was making an enthusiastic pronouncement
about Jim Burton’s Packard car.
“You live here, sonny?”
“Y yes, sir,” stammered Peter,
quite taken aback.
“Well, now, I’ll tell
you what we’re going to do. We’re
going to roll this stalled car a little way into your
yard to get it off the road. All right?”
“Y yes, sir.”
“Then we’re going on to
where that little fellow lives. I have to see
his folks and he has to get some scout duds and junk
and stuff and then we’re coming back. We
ought to be here early in the morning.”
“Y yes, sir.”
“You just keep your eye out
for that car, will you? It has a way of disappearing.”
“Y yes, sir.”
“I don’t mean to watch
it all the time, but just sort of have an eye out.
I’m taking this little jigger out of the distributer,
so no one could run the old bus anyway. But you
just have an eye out, will you?”
“Y yes, sir,” said Peter anxiously.
“That’s the boy, and some
fine day you’ll have a couple of autos of your
own to worry about.”
Peter smiled bashfully, happily.
That was a wonderful joke. And a real scoutmaster,
just like the pictures, had said it to him.
He thought that, with the exception of Theodore Roosevelt,
Scoutmaster Ned was the most wonderful scout that
ever lived. He wondered how it would seem to
know him all the time. Peter had no idea what
a distributer was, but he knew now that his
method of crippling an automobile was very crude.
He was glad they did not know so they could not laugh
at him....
After the Packard car, with its noisy
load, had started for that fairy region where they
had movie shows and things and where Scout Harris
lived, Peter was beset by an awful problem. He
was not sleepy, he would not be sleepy for at least
a year after what he had seen, and he intended to
watch the car as it should be watched. The question
that puzzled him was whether he dared get into it
or whether he had better sit on the old carriage step.
He finally compromised by sitting on the running board.
And there he sat till the owl stopped shrieking and
the first pale herald of the dawn appeared in the
sky.
And when the sun peaked over the top
of Graveyard Hill and painted the tombstones below
with its fresh new light and showed the gray frost
of the autumn morning spread over the lonesome, bleak
fields, and finally cast its cheery light upon the
tiny, isolated home, it found Peter Piper, pioneer
scout, of Piper’s Crossroads, seated there upon
the running board of Scoutmaster Ned’s car,
waiting for one more glimpse of those heroes....